After the proclamation had been made-amid loud flourishes of trumpets and beating of drums, accompanied by the shouts of the assemblage-the royal banner was placed on the Lion Tower.
Later on in the day, a banquet was given in the great baronial hall in the keep, at which all the insurgent officers assisted.
The entertainment was intended to celebrate the appointment of Mr. Forster as General of the Northumbrian forces, which had taken place that day at the recommendation of the Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Widdrington, the only persons who could have opposed him.
But they both felt that the commander of the English army must not be a Roman Catholic, and therefore withdrew their own claims, and supported the High Tory squire, who was generally very popular in the county, and to whom objections on the score of religion could not be raised. However deficient Mr. Forster might be in military knowledge and skill, it was thought he would be saved from any grave error by Colonel Oxburgh, whom he proposed to have constantly near him.
The banquet passed off very well, and the best feeling towards the new commander was manifested on all hands.
Some little disturbance was made by the Laird of Otterburn, but it was quickly set right, and General Forster put more constraint upon himself than he had been accustomed to do in former days at Bamborough.
Next day, the castle began to assume the appearance of a garrison.
The court-yard was filled with recruits, who were continually arriving, and Colonel Oxburgh and Captain Wogan were entirely occupied in examining them.
As much discipline as possible was observed, but in the present state of things it was very difficult to maintain it.
General Forster rode to Alnwick, accompanied by Lord Derwentwater and Lord Widdrington, and attended by a strong guard, and brought back with him some necessary supplies.
On his return he was welcomed by the arrival of a troop of Scottish cavalry (known as the Merse Troop), under the command of the Honourable James Hume, brother to the Earl of Hume.
This was one of the five troops composing the division of South Country Scots now marching into England, from Moffat in Annandale, and commanded by Lord Kenmure.
The Merse troop, it appeared, had marched from Jedburgh, over a mountainous and marshy country to Rothbury, where Captain Hume heard of Forster and Lord Derwentwater, and finding they were now posted at Warkworth, came on thither. Behind, but following the same route, were the four other troops, respectively commanded by the Honourable Basil Hamilton of Beldoun, the Earl of Wintoun, Captain James Dalziel, brother of the Earl of Carnwath, and Captain Lockhart.
The chief command of the South Country Scots, as we have said, belonged to Lord Kenmure.
The Merse troop did not remain long at Warkworth, but after conferring with General Forster, Captain Hume moved off with his men to Felton, there to await instructions from his commander.
It was, however, agreed that an early meeting should take place at Rothbury between the Northumbrian insurgents and the battalion of the South Country Scots.
By noon next day, so many reinforcements had arrived that General Forster found himself at the head of nearly five hundred men.
Unfavourable news, however, from Newcastle, caused Forster to postpone his meditated attack on the town.
Extraordinary exertions had been made by Sir William Lorraine and the other magistrates, who had raised train-bands, seized and imprisoned all the Papists, and shut the gates. Furthermore, it was stated that seven hundred of the inhabitants had formed themselves into a company of volunteers, and that the keelmen, most of whom were Presbyterians, and strongly opposed to the Stuarts, had offered an additional body of seven hundred men.
But by far the most alarming piece of intelligence was, that General Carpenter had been sent by Government in pursuit of the rebels, with three regiments of dragoons and Sir Charles Hotham’s regiment of foot, and was now within a day’s march of Newcastle.
After consultation with his advisers, General Forster did not think it prudent to give battle to Carpenter till he could be certain of the support of Lord Kenmure and Brigadier Mackintosh, and he therefore determined to move to Hexham.
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